Talk:Clarification and stabilization of wine

Weasel words?
Regarding the sentence near the end: Not all producers decide to thoroughly clarify and stabilize their wines, believing that some of a wine flavor, aging potential and complexity come from some of the suspended particles.

Words like "not all", "thoroughly", and "believing" seem weaselly to me. Generally adverbs (especially where they create split infinitives) don't add value to an encyclopedia article, so the sentence wouldn't be harmed by removing "thoroughly."

As to the "belief" part, is that the best that can be found in a reference? A mere belief?

I can attest it's far more than a belief, it's a demonstrable fact, easily verified. If you visit a winery while they're bottling, try the same wine side by side, filtered and unfiltered (e.g. what goes into the bottle vs what comes out of the barrel), and you can taste the difference. In the case of white wines, the difference is a bit of additional yeastiness in the unfiltered version. In the case of red wines, the difference is more complexity in flavor.

Ultimately, the decision to filter must be balanced by flavor and stability considerations. At my uncle's winery, he strives to keep his wines unfiltered, but we have had unfiltered wine go into second fermentation in the bottle, when the dormant yeast remnants wake up and decide to process the residual sugar. In some cases this can improve the wine if you can get the CO2 out to make it flat again, but usually a second fermentation is undesirable because it results in unhappy customers. The alternative is to filter, which diminishes the flavors and evolution of flavors during aging, which can also result in unhappy customers. It's a dilemma.

My comments here are easily verified by asking winemakers about it. This highlights the problem I always face with wine-related articles: What Wikipedia considers reliable sources are often not adequate compared to unpublished on-the-job experiences of winemakers, but those can't be cited. Maybe a winemaking guide or "how to" manual could be found with such useful tidbits of knowledge. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To an extent the weasel words are unavoidable since that is how the reliable sources present the information and we can't just randomly pluck the name of a producer who does and does not do this or that. My goal is to present the information as neutrally as possible and make clear, as the reliable source does, that this is something that is ultimately the personal decision of the winemaker and there is no concrete right or wrong answer. As always these articles are works in progress and better sourcing is always welcomed. AgneCheese/Wine 19:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * First let me state that I'm a wine producer and that I don't filter or stablilize my wines. (I do clarify though, using egg-whites). I say this so you know where I'm coming from, and that it's hard for me to be 'objective' in this case!!!


 * I think it's pretty obvious that the only reasons for clarifying, filtering and stabilizing are purely commercial reasons, ie risk of unhappy customers, and the risk during long-distance transport and storage in uncertain conditions while getting the product to market. There's no real 'quality' reason as far as I can see. This is fair enough I suppose. If the average wine-drinking citizen likes a nice, bright, transparent wine with no 'bits', then a commercially minded producer is going to make sure he/she gets it! Any debate about whether the wine loses any of its qualities becomes secondary (especially if it loses so little of its qualities that only connosseurs can tell the difference!). On the other hand, if you're lucky enough to have a niche market of people who dont mind bits in their cloudy wine, ...


 * As far as the article itself is concerned, it seems to be saying (between the lines, as it were) that 'good' 'properly made' wines ought to be clarified, filtered and stabilized, and if they're not, it's somehow an omission or whim of the wine producer, and the wine is somehow not up to standard. (Except for the weasel-word lip-service-paying sentence comented by Amatulic above). The wiki-issues here are a bit beyond me really. Being an encyclopedia, and given the fact that (probably) over 90% of all wines are clarified, filtered and stabilized, then I suppose the article should concentrate on that. Maybe it should point out the fact that the reasons for clarifying, filtering and stabilizing are purely commercial and not quality-related?
 * Cheers!
 * --BodegasAmbite (talk) 16:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As I noted before, better sourcing and improvement is always welcomed. I'm sure there are winemaking journals or text that could be used to add additional insight, I just don't happen to have those. I endeavored to write this article as neutrally as possible and still reflect the what the available reliable sources are present. That did require putting my own personal POV in check as someone who is more attracted to unfiltered European style wines than mass commercial styles. But, as you noted, the vast majority of wines do go through some clarification, fining, filtering and stabilizing as the reliable sources reflect and that reality must be presented. In numerous locations it is noted that the use of these techniques vary depending on producer and that some in the industry have diverging views on the benefits of certain techniques. There is no favorable view given to one side being better than the other. AgneCheese/Wine 22:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a good article Agne, and I think it reflects the reality of the wine world very well. Keep up the good work - you seem to be almost the only active contributor to the Wine Project these days!! I wish I had more time to contribute more myself - there's a few Spanish DO's that I've been meaning to finish off! --BodegasAmbite (talk) 09:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Filtration vs Quality
There seems to be a lot of discussion regarding the loss of quality associated with filtration. I personally haven't experienced any loss in the 31 years I have been working as a commercial winemaker. Granted, immediately after filtration, when the colloidal structure of the wine has been torn apart, a filtered wine does taste thin and wrung out. However, after giving the wine time, the colloids regroup and the wine recovers. Case in point: in 1997 I bottled 3 cases of a beautiful Stags Leap Cab without fining or filtration, 3 cases after running across Seitz k100 pads and then 3 cases after EK filtration (nominal ~0.45 micron). After 6 months, in a double blind tasting, there was no statistical difference between the three lots, with no one in the tasting (all wine professionals) ranking the EK filtered wine as the worst. I retasted that wine in 2007 with the same results.

During my studies in Geisenheim, I queried one of my professors, a South African enologist about filtration. His answer was that one half the gold medal winning wines in a given vintage were sterile filtered and one half were not. Not difference in number of medals awarded.

However, both my as well as the South African experiences were anecdotal. For a true test of the influence of filtration on wine quality, a multiple year, multiple variety experiment would have to be set up, evaluated, corrected for statistical variation and then submitted for peer review before publishing. I would love to see this sort of scientific rigour applied to what I believe up to now has been a purely emotional debate.NapaWineMan (talk) 23:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well as I noted above, I wholeheartedly encourage any improvement to the article as long as there are reliable sources cited to maintain the referencing and integrity of the article. I strove to write this article as neutrally as possible based on the available reliable sources that I had. Like everything else on Wikipedia, this article is a work in progress. AgneCheese/Wine 04:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)